The relevance of equal splits in ultimatum games

In this note we present a slightly altered version of the mini ultimatum game of G. E. Bolton and R. Zwick (1995, Games Econ. Behav. 10, 95-121). More specifically, we replaced exactly equal splits by nearly equal splits either (slightly) favoring the proposer or the responder. Such a minor change should not matter if behavior was robust. We find, however, a significant change in behavior: Fair offers occur less often when equal splits are replaced by nearly equal splits. (C) 2001 Academic Press.